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    Untitled Article

    nature might bind to protect her against all violence to the tenderest feelings and the most natural shame withdraws his defence , and leaves the path open to a Carden ? Yet how many a girl sees herself pursued with hated importunities—is dragged to the church , which is desecrated by her wrong —is the victim of a wedding feast , and finally left

    How many a girl would cry out to the bystanders in tlie street , for rescue from the Carden , but that her own father would vouch for the due and lawful nature of the sacrifice ? Yes , in many a home , whose knocker and bell-liandle are untarnished with the suspicion of any stain to the " respectable , " crime is begun by suck confederacy ; and the undenounced Carden of that crime , we say , is not better than the lawless Lord of

    Rathronaaie , but worse—not less cowardly , but more so . If we are bent on measuring the vices which sap the life of society , we must look further than the Morning Herald or the Society for the Suppression of Vice ; perhaps we must , peer among the very subscribers to those respectable institutions . If we desire to protect injured woman against every lawless appropriator , we must defend her , not only shrieking in the public streets— -but sometimes sobbing in the desponding prison that is called " home . "

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    THE SPOON MANUFACTURE FOR THE ARMY . Mieitary life is not civil life , but very much the reverse . It is not always in the direct statement that people tell the most , especially when the subject is themselves ; but the keenest autobiography comes out in collateral confessions . " Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman" is the phrase for expressing that which a gentleman wearing a sword in her Majesty's service is expected to avoid :

    but what is conduct -unbecoming an officer and a gentleman ? According to the charge against Lieutenant Perry such conduct may consist not only in defending oneself with a pair of candlesticks , when no more regular weapon is at hand , but also in making 1 certain allegations , or asking certain questions in selfdefence . This gives a very wide scope to the honourable force of military law , and we must take a comparatively high standard of it . Again , Mr . Perry " mentioned to people in

    Dublin" that one of the officers in question " was known "by a very ugly name , " and this was considered to be a cause of complaint against Mr . Perry . On the other hand , there is no disproof of the fact that the anomalous officer in question was known by the ugly name ; there is no disproof of the statement that Colonel Garret had met complaints of the grossest indignity

    by mild or evasive answers ; there is no disproof , but proof , that indecent irregularities took place almost in Colonel Garret ' s presence . Thus , it would appear , while it is an ojffbnce to allude to such matters , it is no oifence to tolerate them . In the regiment men may call each other by ugly names , yot tlie offence shall consist in tolling people outaidw that tho name is used . The offences of

    making an officer perform tho sword exerciso naked , of dragging him downstairs almost in tho colonel ' s presence in his night-shirt , or of dragging him about and forcing him to drink ¦ with ladies not usually admitted into good society , are venial ; but to complain of them , t (> mention them outside—these are tho gravo misdeeds . There must bo , therefore , a corta . in freemasonry in hoi- Majesty ' s service , which creates a totally diflfcrent standard from that established outside . Wo know well that it is tho groatost of nuisances to have a " spoon" forced into n regiment . Certain Icinda of weakness nro

    disliked everywhere , and the spooney is not tolerated amongst school boys , sailors , bricklayers , or officers in her IVTajesty ' s service . If a spoon-bill "be merely foolish , he may become a species of persecuted favourite , like the idiot of the village ; and the hero who is initiated into the freemasonry of a barrack room , may even rise to the level of a monarch in the favour of a world-famous Helen . But if the spoon add the lawyer to his other

    qualities , he is detested . A man who will consent to perform the sword exercise naked , and yet can answer a silly remark with a repartee—who cannot defend his own position , and yet can teach the colonel his duty , must evidently be a provoking dog . Nevertheless , however desirable it might be to force such a man out of the regiment , common self-respect would prevent civilians from using the means with which gentlemen wearing a sword in her Majesty ' s service appear to find redress for their wounded honour .

    "We suspect that no small part of the embarrassment under which officers appear at present to labour is occasioned by a vain attempt on their part to assimilate their mode of life to civil standards . The spoony regime has been rather encouraged in high quarters . At the present moment , while officers and men . are burning for action , the chief activity of the Horse Guards , and of

    their representative even at the scene of war , is an incessant restlessness and despotism in man-millinery . "While officers and men are chafing with desire to get at the Russian , IJord Raglan and the Horse Guards are chafed with neglect of the razor * , the subaltern imagination revels in wild and . chivalrous campaigns , the imagination in chief busies itself with two inches of shaven space on face or chin , with more or less buttoning for shell jackets , —is shocked at ' the sight of bare necks or red flannel-shirts underneath .

    To satisfy the Horse Guards , a little Cupid should be stationed beside the looking-glass of every officer , to superintend the shaving of his cheek , the arrangement of his shirtcollar , and the buttoning of his jacket ; to see , in fact , that he would be fit for parade or a linendraper ' s shop . In the meanwhile , the rough arbitrament by which soldiers were accustomed to settle quarrels amongst themselves has been discontinued . Formerly , if a spoon intruded himself into a regiment in the hope of clothing himself with courageous red ,

    ¦ when white was the uniform of his liver , some summary but not indecent indignity would call upon him to redress tho grievance for himself ; and if he neglected that duty to his own pride , lie would soon be compelled to leave his regiment and the service . At this day , in every barrack room , the subaltern finds a Peace Society ; the arbitration of chivalry has been discontinued ; and we need scarcely wonder , therefore , if we fiud young officers engaged in squabbles and scandals that unite the indecency of school-boys with the malignity of old maida .

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    THE TRADE OF HULL IN DAGGER . Hull is awaiting tho writ for a new eloction , and is already courting two candidates of vory different stamp . In . one sense , wo may say that an opportunity is now offered for tho candidate who is declared inenpacitatod for sitting again , since he has an offer from some of tho constituency to sit again by

    deputy . It ia said that Mr . Clay may be permitted to nominate the now candidate , and that Mr . Watson , Q . C ., ia to lend tho lustre of n liamo eminent at tho bar to that project for continuing tho Hull smuggling trade , notwithstanding tho proventivo guard which tho Commons are attempting to strengthen . On tho other hand , some amongst tho constituency profiting by tho

    example of Edinburgh , -which discarded Macaulay for a time , and then invited him back , are endeavouring to open the way by which General Perronet Thompson may be escorted back to his old seat . Hull , indeed , is a splendid place for the Conservative of Parliament management . There were 193 names in the schedule of the bill for disfranchising the corrupt voters , and there were 180 persons not included in that schedule against whom the evidence was

    strong . The schedule of these illustrious persons is confined to no party , but is equally open to all ; we cannot say influenced by none . Mr . Clay , however , may be said to deserve the attention of the constituency , since it was through his means that the freedom was taken up for 236 individuals , who would otherwise have let their right lie

    dormant . The cost of creating that faithful party was 30 s . a head , and although—such is the corruption of human nature—some sixty of them imitated the " immense ingratitude " of Sehwarzeiiberg , and failed to fulfil the expectation , the creation of voters was , upon the whole , a good venture . The voters thus created , however , have to be fed ; like the factitious man whom Frankenstein called into

    being , they ask their parent for the means arid delights of existence . But Clay , like Frankenstein , cannot perhaps command all that voters wish ; hence the policy of a partner in the election ; hence the preference for a candidate whose purse is stored with solid sunshine , and who has not , like General Thompson , a punctilious dislike to entering the House of Commons by the universal suffrage already enforced—the suffrage of the sovereign . We can sympathise with these objections to General Thompson . In former times his intervention has rendered the election of

    " Reformers , " in " the usual way , " almost impossible . But Hull has arrived at that point in its existence at which it seems to have the choice of continuing a merry life and a short one , and of "being politically killed by disfranchisement , or of reforminglts ways ; honestly electing a honest member , and defying disfranchisement bills . The way to rescue Hull from this compulsory reform , and to keep ui > the good old trade for freemen , so

    long as the Commons will permit them to indulge it , is to find a man of good standing who will consent to accept the position which General Thompson indignantly repelled . When he was asked to stand for Hull " in the usual way , " he declared that "he would as soon think of selling his daughter tc be a concubine at New Orleans ; " but possibly other honourable candidates may as little dread the yellow fever at New Orleans , upon Mississippi , as at Iviugston-upou-Hull .

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    THE PUBLIC HEALTH . Parliament , in its wisdom , has this Avoek seen fit to adopt Lord Seymour ' s motion ; and the Public Health Act Continuance Bill , as modified and proposed by JJordPahnerston , ia rejected . That some Government board should exist for tho ptirposo of perform ing-Public Health Act duties , seems to bo acknowledged even by tho opponents of tho old board ; and , no doubt , tho new " bill , which has been brought in , will bo pnssod . " Byon at

    this late period of tho session tliero are many and vital interests involved in tho question of public health . Theso , such legislators as Lord Seymour may put down for a time—they may retard—bu t ; , tlu-y ciinnofc ovorlook . iho seed lins boon sown , " tho plant ; vnll prow ; there will , in duo time , bo fruit . Governments Inivo fcnxod , lmvo blinded , have persecuted , hnvo doapisod tho people—tho result haa over boon destruction . Tho great nations of antiquity grow up in comparative poverty

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    August 5 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER .. 733

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 5, 1854, page 733, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2050/page/13/